Listen: India woes, new operators and fleet expansions

This week, there were some major stories coming out of India, while the newer generation of narrowbody freighters continues to make its way into the fleets of operators around the world. In this episode of “Cargo Facts Connect,” Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke discuss Spicejet suffering repeat safety issues and the imminent growth of India’s freighter fleet. They then look at Raya Airways’ expansion into Airbus narrowbodies, 737NG freighters in Georgia and three new 767-300Fs that have now found a home. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. Andrew Crider Hello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect the podcast of cargo facts the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I'm your host Andrew Crider, associate editor of cargo facts. Robert Luke And I'm Robert Luke, associate editor of cargo facts. Jeff Lee And I am Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts. Andrew Crider I want to begin this evening with news from India. Bloomberg reported two days ago that Indian aviation regulator has issued a rare summons to SpiceJet following a number of incidents that the airline was involved in. On Tuesday, a Boeing 737 Max diverted to Karachi due to a bad indicator light malfunction. The same day a dash eight was forced to land after a cracked windshield. On July 2, one aircraft returned to New Delhi after smoke was reported in the cabin. Most recently on July 5, Spice express had a malfunction of a 737 freighter, which was forced to return shortly after takeoff for planned flight to China after its weather radar stopped working. SpiceJet operates two 737 800 BCF and 3 737 700BDSF. We're happy to hear that everyone is OK. And we commend the flight crew on their fantastic performance getting the aircraft safe on the ground that goes for all those flights as well. That's not the only news that came out of India this week. Jeff Lee Right? It wasn't and perhaps in more positive news, we are about to see a new airline in India and a new cargo airline at that. Because the first, EFW converted a 320 p2F, which as we know, St. Engineering is leasing to vaayu group, which in turn is subleasing to astral aviation. That aircraft completed conversion earlier in 2022 and had hadn't flown really since February, and had been in Singapore a few days ago, emerged and carried out a test flight and it was seen in the new colors. And this new airline apparently it's called Pradhan air Express. And we now know that this new airline is going to be phased in Delhi. And they will be operating this first a 320 P two F and using it for charters, both domestically and internationally. And this is rather interesting because India right now is only has one freighter operator, and that's blue dart with its fleet of 757 200 freighters. But pretty soon, we will of course get Pradhan into the mix. But in August as well we will see Indigo take its first a 321 P two F so it's this is good growth for India and we'll see more freighter operators and interesting both using Airbus narrowbody freighters. Robert Luke That is interesting news indeed. Thanks for sharing Jeff. Speaking of a 320s Malaysia based Raya airways will continue its Airbus narrowbody fleet expansion with the addition of four freighters to a 320 P two F's and to a 321 P two s. Raya will lease all four aircraft from ST Engineering No surprise there there have been on the move lately. The company who formed the one two punch with Airbus and created the E FW joint venture, and the first aircraft at 2000 Vintage a 321 msn 1293 has two IAE V 2500 engines, and is undergoing conversion at the ST Engineering facility in Singapore. The A 321 P two F is expected to be delivered to Raya in the fourth quarter of 2022. Riot told cargo facts that the other three aircraft will eventually join its fleet as Raya and ST engineering work out the logistics and the timeline that is amenable for both sides. The Malaysian carrier also confirmed it will proceed with its initial plans to lease two a321 PCFs from cargo aircraft management to deal with cam was supposed to be Riis first a 321 freighters only to be delayed due to engine requirements that must be fulfilled before the PCFs can be delivered. Andrew Crider This was a busy week and of course, there were new developments regarding 737 Next Generation freighters Robert Luke oh yes silk way West, the Azerbaijan based carrier expanded its reach into Central Asia in the Middle East markets by wet leasing two 737 800 freighters from their neighboring carriers. We at cargo Facts believe the aircraft on the ACMI is Georgian airways 737 800 SF two a 231, which is an ex smart wings airplane, and Georgian airlines 737 800 BCF 28595, which is an ex air Italy. Both have been flying between Baku and Tbilisi and Dubai and Arbil, Kuwait City Atyrau and Aktau for Silk Way West Airlines and the carrier has also indicated it has plans to add a third one in the near future. But going back to the original two Georgian airways launched his cargo subsidiary and 2021 before leasing aero capital solutions first freighter placed after the conversion with AEI, which was the unit to a 231 GA and airlines 1999 Vintage unit 28595 was on lease from BBM in January 2022 after the conversion at the Boeing facility in Jinan and in other Caspian region news camex airlines will become the third carrier in Georgia to fly the type after receiving its first 737 800 BCF unit. 3354 9x Ryanair on July 4, the new airline is leasing to 2003 Vantage from BBM after conversion with Boeing in Guangzhou. Hey, Jeff, what's going on in widebody world of freighters? Jeff Lee Yeah, I was just gonna add. It's pretty interesting in. In Georgia, there are now four carriers as you said, Camex is going to be the third to fly 800 freighters. But there's also my way airlines also in Georgia and they have 1 737 700 BDSF. So yeah, it's interesting that this country is now home to four operators of 737 ng freighters. Matching the China and the US. Robert Luke Yeah, that's great. They're making a huge impact. Absolutely. Jeff Lee Yeah. So we'll continue, I guess, to see 800 700 freighters arriving in fleets of existing carriers and new carriers. Robert Luke Well, Central Asia be central to the Boeing 737 narrowbodies is what it's looking like. Jeff Lee Right. I mean, location definitely has some part to play in all this growth. But yeah, going back to sort of wide bodies, and specifically seven, six sevens. We did an interesting story this week about Maersk cargo, the new airline. That is basically the the new Star air. They turns out, they're taking the three new build 767 300 freighters that Boeing built, I think, probably last year. Those along with two others. We believe were previously heading to China Central long hao airlines. Now, two of these five aircraft are now air Canada's and that airline took delivery of them recently, but isn't going to start flying them until next year. So that left three and we know from an earlier announcement this year that Maersk was expecting 3 76 sevens for a unique kind of operation. And we now know more because turns out they are acquiring the three new builds seven, six sevens. And they told us that they are going to be placing them with a CMI operator in the US for operations between China and the US. I mean, lots of interesting things in there. But apart from that maersk air cargo itself is also growing in other ways because it's leasing 3 76 sevens from cam and it also has of course, the two new triple seven freighters on order. We do have to kind of wonder though, who is this mystery CMI operator that is going to be flying these seven six sevens. Once there are more than a few 767 CMI slash ACMI operators in the US, you know, just some of these include Atlas the ATSG airlines, but we did another interesting story didn't we about Iaero airways. And it turns out they might be getting into 767 freighters as well. So we will have to see who ends up playing these for maersk air cargo. And just as a final point, all this growth in the in the shipping and logistics world because CMA cgm of course, based in France is adding its own large wide bodies with an order for 4 A350s and you know recently added two more new triple sevens. So yeah, we're seeing a lot of growth in that segment. But across both large wide bodies and medium wide bodies. So, yeah, it's good to see that all those five new build seven six sevens. Now have a home. Andrew Crider Always happy to see seven six sevens find at home. My hat's off to whoever can convert a 767 400 freighter. Is my personal favorite variety of that aircraft. But I haven't seen any reports that indicate that that would ever be on the wraps. That's all the time we have for today. For those of you listening, thank you for tuning in to this episode of cargo facts Connect. For more multimedia content like this, check out cargo facts.com and search cargo facts connect on iTunes and Spotify. Join us again next time. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor .

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